Departmental Academic Database: Result Calculation

Module Result Calculation

A module result is the weighted average of an overall coursework result and an overall exam result. The overall coursework result is the weighted average of zero or more individual coursework marks and the overall exam result is the weighted average of zero or more individual examination marks. A student may be excused from individual courseworks due to extenuating circumstances, in which case their overall coursework result is the weighted average of the remaining courseworks. When calculating the final module result for a session, the overall coursework result and/or the overall exam result from that session may be replaced by better results from previous sessions, if any. The overall coursework results, overall exam results and final module results may each be scaled globally for all students on a course using a scaling formula determined by the departmental exam board.

The formula for calculating the overall weighted average of n individual marks is:

∑(mi × wi) where i = 1..n
∑(w1..wn)

The steps for calculating a module result are:

  1. Calculate weighted average of individual coursework marks for the overall coursework result
  2. Calculate weighted average of individual exam marks for the overall exam result
  3. Apply coursework scaling formula to overall coursework result
  4. Apply exam scaling formula to overall exam result
  5. Use better overall coursework result from prior session (if any)
  6. Use better overall exam result from prior session (if any)
  7. If overall exam weight > 0 and any exam marks are missing then result = incomplete
    Else if overall coursework weight > 0 and all courseworks were excused:
        If overall coursework weight > 20% of the module result then result = incomplete else result = exam
    Else result = weighted average of overall coursework result and overall exam result
  8. Apply resit penalty to module result
  9. Apply module result scaling formula to module result

Summer-Resit Courseworks

Summer-resit courseworks do not necessarily have a one-to-one correspondence with first-attempt courseworks - one or more resit courseworks may correspond to multiple first-attempt courseworks. Some courses are taught in distinct sections by different staff who set their own courseworks and each may set resit courseworks for their section of the course. Students may only need to submit resit courseworks for one section of a course, if they already have coursework marks for the other sections of the course from their first-attempt in the same year. The overall coursework result for the year comprises any overall resit result for a course section that is better than the overall first-attempt result for the same section, plus the overall first-attempt results for the other sections of the course that the student did not resit.

For example, Dr Smith and Dr Jones teach different sections of the same course. Dr Smith sets 2 first-attempt courseworks and 1 equivalent summer-resit coursework. Dr Jones sets 4 first-attempt courseworks and 2 equivalent summer-resit courseworks. For simplicity, all courseworks in this example are weighted equally. The following table shows the selection of first-attempt (cwN) or resit (rcN) coursework marks to calculate the overall coursework results for students with resit coursework marks for different sections of the course. Non-submissions are represented by a dash and have a value of zero. The marks actually used to calculate the overall coursework result for each student are highlighted in red.

  Dr Smith Dr Jones
1st AttemptResit 1st AttemptResit
cw1cw2rc1 cw1cw2cw3cw4rc1rc2
Student1: --45 30404050--
Student2: 12-10 ----7060
Student3: 203020 25303540-90

For more information, please contact: E.Martin@gold.ac.uk